User permissions
User permissions set what a workspace member can do overall through their role, and what they can reach in specific files through repository-level access.
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What are user permissions?
User permissions are the combination of a member's workspace role and their file-level access that together decide what they can do in the context repository. Every workspace has one owner, plus any number of admins and members, and each role sets a baseline: owners have full control including deleting the workspace, admins can invite and remove members and manage shared resources, and members can create and use resources but only update or delete what they created themselves. On top of that baseline, individual files and folders carry their own access setting with four levels: no access, can read, can edit, and full access.
Why user permissions exist
A single role can't capture everything a person should or shouldn't reach once a repository has many files covering different parts of the company. Without a second layer, every member with edit rights on the workspace would have the same reach into every file, with no way to keep one team's working notes open to editing while limiting another folder to read-only. Splitting permissions into a role baseline plus per-file settings lets a workspace stay collaborative by default while still holding specific files back from people who don't need to touch them.
How do user permissions work?
Role changes happen from Settings, in the Members tab: an owner or admin invites a member by email and assigns a role, and can change that role later by selecting a different one for that member. Admins can't demote themselves, and only the owner can delete the workspace itself.
File-level access works separately. A repository-wide default access level applies to every file and folder unless someone overrides it in that specific file or folder's Access management section, where a member gets added directly with can read, can edit, or full access, which adds the ability to manage access for others. Access can only widen moving deeper into the folder tree, never narrow, so a setting on a subfolder can't take away what a parent folder already granted. This same four-level system is also how API keys get scoped, through access controls.